


like a beacon in the dark

by dawnmay



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Armie-centric, Character Study, Gen, Infidelity, Insomnia, M/M, POV Second Person, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:40:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21666064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawnmay/pseuds/dawnmay
Summary: Armie can't sleep.
Relationships: Timothée Chalamet/Armie Hammer
Comments: 10
Kudos: 48





	like a beacon in the dark

You’ve been trying to quit, and you’re not just talking about the cigarettes. It’s everything surrounding the habit, when you’re inventing a reason to get out of the house because you can’t sleep; the kids need diapers, the SUV is low on gas, the whatever needs more whatever. They’re all excuses to bring you back here, standing in front of the cashier with the curls, the droopy eyelids, the _cheekbones_. It’s definitely the cheekbones that do it; the reason why you’re holding bread and a useless bottle of Tylenol PM (when you’ve already tried everything else).

The reason you keep coming back. 

"Usual?" He puts the cigarettes on the counter and rings them up. 

Today he’s reading Heraclitus, the one you recommended last week in lieu of asking him anything too personal. You wanted to know: is he single, does he even like men. All of it crushes under the weight of your tongue, and then nothing. You shouldn’t even be here. 

You’ve thought of making the most out of insomnia, taking up jogging at 4 in the morning, being that guy who drinks organic smoothies and goes to SoulCycle. Instead, you chain smoke in the attic where Liz won’t remind you about how it upsets the baby. 

Timothée says, "Hey, thanks for letting me borrow it." He gives you the battered paperback along with your change. 

This time, you ignore the softness of his hand. An actor, he hasn’t known hard work a day in his life. To be fair, neither have you. 

“You can’t enter the same river twice,” you say, quoting the book. 

“That blew my mind. Like, what does that even mean?”

It means change. But you’ll spare him the pseudo intellectualism that you use to compensate for never finishing high school. The cigarettes are a solid weight in your hand, tethering you to the counter. The transaction over, but a heaviness you can’t snap out of.

“What are you reading about now? he asks. 

“Knots."

“Like, Boy Scouts knots?”

When you can’t sleep, you read about knots on your phone. Something about being confined is paradoxically liberating; trapped in one space, tied up, squirming in futility closes off a world of too many possibilities. The only way to feel smaller when you’re 6’5”. Something Kierkegaardian. Which, you loaned to Timmy last week. 

“Something like that.”

_Like, tie me up and bend me over knots. Like a noose._

Timmy nods, smiles—a formality you look forward to every night. He won’t pry, ask about your wife, why you stalk gas stations, why you’re still standing here. 

The moment passes. Timmy’s quiet until “Hey, can I bum one of those?” 

Your feet are made of lead. 

“Yeah, sure.” Somehow you find words where your feet have failed you.

It hasn’t gotten past this point; the familiar courtesy of checking out your things, asking about any new auditions he’s landed, or recommending existential philosophy. A brief passing of skin as you take your change. And it’s always cash, so your hands may touch. 

He leads you to the back of the store, not before he locks up, saying Ansel, his manager, could take over because he’s “cool like that.” 

Now that you think of it, you’ve never seen him from the waist down. You follow behind, his hips slim, his wiry frame and creamy skin. Towering over him, you see you could wreck him if you wanted to. 

You’re outside in what passes for winter in Dallas, enough for every breath to look like you’re exchanging heat, the tendrils wrapping around your nose, the heat barely there and then it dissolves to nothing. You light the cigarette, a tiny spot in the dark, a beacon Timmy follows. You offer him one, and he accepts, coughs up a lung.

“Inhale,” you tell him. “Breathe in.”

You started a fire on your school’s lawn on what seems like forever ago. The flames and the smoke licked at the sky. You’ve always done things simply to do them—no rhyme or reason or poetics. Just like your marriage, your kids, the house and the dog. Liz once said you have a habit of falling into things. You just wanted to watch something burn, the purification, a renewal and cleansing.

“Now breathe out,” you tell him, then take another hit. You pause, and you exhale at the same time, slowly. 

The smoke clouds Timmy’s face until he’s closer, the warmth of your bodies pressed together. “I’ve always wanted to do this,” he says. His lips hovering across yours. 

The sun will be rising soon.


End file.
